“The two most common tactics for evading the terror of solitude are both singularly ineffective. The first is denigrating those who do not fear it, especially if they claim to enjoy it, and stereotyping them as ‘miserable’, ‘selfish’, ‘crazy’ or ‘perverse’ (sad, mad and bad). The second is infinitely extending our social contacts as a sort of insurance policy, which social media makes increasingly possible. The first is ineffective because of the risk that a whole range of circumstances may force someone into solitude involuntarily. Should this happen, the fear-and-projection strategy will turn round and bite back: you will be the sad, mad, bad person, and this can only make a difficult situation very much worse. Additionally, since – as you will see – there is a good deal of evidence that none of these worries are actually true, people pursuing this route will be obliged to cut themselves off from many ways of knowing about the actual world in which they are living. This itself may well prove isolating: one of the problems with projected fears is that they do tend to make the scary thing or event more likely, rather than less likely, to occur.”